IV. WHEN MUSIC AND DRAMA ARE FITLY JOINED
I have referred to these various inconsistencies and absurdities of opera, not with the idea of making out a case against it; on the contrary, I want to make out a case for it. This obviously can be done only by means of operas which are guiltless of absurdities and of melodramatic exaggeration, which answer the requirements of artistic reasonableness, and are, at the same time, beautiful. This cannot be said of “Cavalleria Rusticana” (Rustic Chivalry—Heaven save the mark!), “La Bohème,” “La Tosca,” “The Girl of the Golden West,” “Thaïs” (poison, infidelity, suicide, sorcery, and religion mixed up in an intolerable mélange), “Contes d’Hoffman” (a Don Juan telling his adventures in detail)—these are bad art, not because they are immoral, but because they are untrue, distorted, without sense of the value of the material they employ.
Operas which are both beautiful and reasonable do exist, and one or two of them are actually in our present-day repertoire. The questions we have to ask are these: Can a highly imaginative and significant drama, in which action and reflection hold a proper balance, in which some great and moving passion or some elemental human motives find true dramatic expression—can such a drama exist as opera? Is it possible to preserve the body and the spirit of drama and at the same time to preserve the body and spirit of music? Does not one of these have to give way to the other? We want opera to be one thing, and not several. We want the same unity which exists in other artistic forms. We want to separate classic, romantic, and realistic. If opera changes from blank verse to rhymed verse, so to speak, we want the change to be dictated by an artistic necessity as it is in “As You Like It.” We want, above all, such a reasonable correspondence between seeing and hearing as shall make it possible for us to preserve each sense unimpaired by the other. A few such operas have been composed. A considerable number approach this ideal. From Gluck’s “Orfeo” (produced in 1762) to Wagner’s “Tristan” (1865) the pure conception of opera has always been kept alive. Gluck, Mozart, Weber, Wagner, and Verdi are the great names that stand out above the general level.
Gluck’s “Orfeo” is even more interesting since the dark shadow of Strauss’s “Electra” has appeared to throw it into relief. Once in a decade or two “Orfeo” is revived to reveal anew how nobly Gluck interpreted the old Greek story. And it must be remembered that Gluck lived in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when music was quite inflexible in the matter of those dissonances which are considered by modern composers absolutely necessary to the expression of dramatic passion.
After Gluck came Mozart with his “Don Giovanni,” preserving the same balance between action and emotion, with an even greater unity of style and the same sincerity of utterance. Mozart possessed a supreme mastery over all his material, and a unique gift for creating pure and lucid melody. In his operas there is no admixture: his tragedy and his comedy are alike purely objective—and it is chiefly this quality which prevents our understanding them. We, in our day and age, cannot project ourselves into Mozart’s milieu; the tragedy at the close of “Don Giovanni” moves us no whit because it is devoid of shrieking dissonances and thunders of orchestral sound. Our nervous systems are adjusted to instrumental cataclysms. (We are conscious only of a falling star; the serene and placid Heavens look down on us in vain.) Could we hear “Don Giovanni” in a small opera house sung in pure classic style, we should realize how beautiful it is; we should no longer crave the over-excitement and unrestrained passion of “La Tosca”; we should understand that the deepest passion is expressible without tearing itself to tatters, and that music may be unutterably tragic in simple major and minor mode. Don Giovanni is a type of operatic hero,—he may be found in some modified form in half the operas ever written,—but Mozart lifts him far above his petty intrigues and makes him a great figure standing for certain elements in human nature. (It is the failure of Gounod to accomplish this which puts “Faust” on the lower plane it occupies.) The stage setting of “Don Giovanni,”—the conventional rooms with gilt chairs, and the like,—the costumes, the acting, the music (orchestral and vocal), are all unified in one style. And this, coupled with the supreme mastery and the melodic gift of its composer, makes it one of the most perfect, if not the most perfect, of operas.
Beethoven’s “Fidelio” (produced in 1805) celebrates the devotion and self-sacrifice of a woman—and that devotion and self-sacrifice actually have for their object her husband! It is a noble opera, but Beethoven’s mind and temperament were not suited to the operatic problem, and “Fidelio” is not by any means a perfect work of art. The Beethoven we hear there is the Beethoven of the slow movements of the sonatas and symphonies; but we could well hear “Fidelio” often, for it stands alone in its utter sincerity and grandeur.
The romantic operas of Weber tend toward that characterization which is the essential equality of his great successor, Wagner, for “Der Freischütz” and “Euryanthe” are full of characteristic music. Weber begins and ends romantic opera. (Romantic subjects are common enough, but romantic treatment is exceedingly uncommon. Scott’s “Bride of Lammermoor,” for example, in passing through the hands of librettist and composer becomes—in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”—considerably tinged with melodrama.) There is evidence enough in “Der Freischütz” and “Euryanthe” of Weber’s sincerity and desire to make his operas artistic units. Each of them conveys a definite impression of beauty and avoids those specious appeals so common in opera.
Meanwhile, in the early part of the nineteenth century, opéra comique was flourishing in France. Auber, Hérold, Boieldieu, and other composers were producing works in which the impossible happenings of grand opera were made possible by humor and lightness of touch. The words of these composers are full of delightful melody and are more reasonable and true than are many better-known grand operas.
Then comes the Wagnerian period, with its preponderance of drama over music. In “Tristan und Isolde” Wagner, by his own confession, turned away from preconceived theories and composed as his inner spirit moved him. “Tristan” is, therefore, the work of an artist rather than of a theorist, and although it is based on the leit-motif and on certain other important structural ideas which belong to the Wagnerian scheme, it rises far above their limitations and glows with the real light of genius. In “Tristan” the action is suited to the psychology. It is a great work of art and the most beautiful of all recantations. In it we realize how finely means may be adjusted to ends, how clearly music and text may be united, how reasonable is the use of the leit-motif when it characterizes beings aflame with passion; how the song, under the influence of great dramatic situations, can be expanded; how vividly the orchestra can interpret and even further the actions; how even the chorus can be fitted into the dramatic scheme—everywhere in “Tristan” there is unity. This is not true of most of Wagner’s other operas. “Die Meistersinger” comes nearest to “Tristan” in this respect. May we not say that of all the music-dramas of Wagner, “Tristan” and “Die Meistersinger” lay completely in his consciousness unmixed with philosophical ideas and theories? In them the leit-motif deals chiefly with emotions or with characteristics of persons rather than with inanimate objects, or ideas; in them is no grandiose scenic display; no perversity of theory, but only beautiful music wedded to a fitting text.
Wagner’s reforms were bound to bring about a reaction, which came in due season and resulted in shorter and more direct works, such as those of the modern Italians. No operas since Wagner, save Verdi’s “Otello” and “Falstaff,” approach the greatness of his music-dramas, and the tendency of many of these later works has been too much toward what we mildly call “decadence.” But there is a great difference between the truthfulness and artistic validity of “Carmen” and that of “La Bohème” and “La Tosca.” The former is packed full of genuine passion, however primitive, brutal, and devastating it may be; and its technical skill is undoubted.
The most interesting phrase of modern opera is found in the works of the Russians. It was inevitable that they should overturn our delicately adjusted artistic mechanism. Dostoïevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” is as though there never had been a Meredith or a Henry James, and Moussorgsky’s “Boris Godounov” is as though there had never been a Mozart or a Wagner. It has something of that amorphous quality which seems to be a part of Russian life, but, on the other hand, it has immense vitality. How refreshing to see a crowd of peasants look like peasants, and to hear them sing their own peasant songs; and what stability they give to the whole work! “Boris Godounov” gravitates, as it were, around these folk-songs, which give to it a certain reality and truthfulness.